Choose the option which best expresses the given sentence in Indirect speech:
He said, "I have given up my job".
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → He said that he had given up his job.
Assertive sentence in indirect speech:
| Change | Direct | Indirect | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reporting verb | said, “ | said that | “Said” has no object, so it stays “said”. “That” replaces the inverted commas. |
| Pronoun change | I, my | he, his | “I” becomes “he”, “my” becomes “his”. |
| Tense change | have given | had given | The reporting verb “said” is in the past, so the present perfect moves back to the past perfect: “have given” becomes “had given”. |
| Full sentence | He said, “I have given up my job”. | He said that he had given up his job. |
Example: She said, “I have lost my key.” → She said that she had lost her key.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: He said that he gave up his job. — Incorrect. The present perfect should become the past perfect ("had given"), not the simple past.
Option 3: He said that he gave the job up. — Incorrect. It uses the simple past and changes "my" to "the".
Option 4: He said that he had had given up my job. — Incorrect.
- "Had had given" repeats the helping verb, which is ungrammatical.
- "My" should change to "his".